RMS on Plan 9 license, with my comments

John Cowan jcowan at reutershealth.com
Tue Jul 25 14:30:19 UTC 2000


David Johnson wrote:

> I believe that copyright grants the user the right to make
> modifications. HOWEVER, it does not also confer the right to distribute
> those modifications.

The U.S. Copyright Act (section 106), which I will take as typical, says:

# § 106. Exclusive rights in copyrighted works
# Subject to sections 107 through 120, the owner of copyright under this title
# has the exclusive rights to do and to authorize any of the following: [...]
# (2) to prepare derivative works based upon the copyrighted work [...].

"Prepare", not merely "distribute".

-- 

Schlingt dreifach einen Kreis um dies! || John Cowan <jcowan at reutershealth.com>
Schliesst euer Aug vor heiliger Schau,  || http://www.reutershealth.com
Denn er genoss vom Honig-Tau,           || http://www.ccil.org/~cowan
Und trank die Milch vom Paradies.            -- Coleridge (tr. Politzer)



More information about the License-discuss mailing list